India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asserted that his government will work to make India a hub for seafood exports, PuneMirror reported.
Modi made the statement through video conferencing during the launch of a development project in Kerala state.
"India is investing in the blue economy. We value the effort of our fishermen. Our efforts for the fishermen community are based on more credits, increased technology, top quality infrastructure and supportive government policies,” he said.
He added that fishermen can get access to Kisan Credit Cards, a scheme of the central government to provide farmers in the country loans with lower interest rates.
The government supports the application of advanced technologies in the fishing sector and is in process of modernizing fishing ports.
“The government’s policies will ensure India will become a hub for seafood exports,” Modi said.
India Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries’ Secretary Atul Chaturvedi said in an article on The Economic Times that policies applied by the government in the past six years have helped the fisheries sector grow by more than 10 percent per year.
The Indian government will work with various states, beneficiaries and funders in an effort allocate total investment of about USD 6.9 billion (EUR 5.7 billion) to help develop the local fisheries sector over the next five years, Chaturvedi said.
Meanwhile, India’s Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (CIBA) is working with farmers, insurance companies and scientists in order to introduce a crop insurance product for shrimp growers, according to The New Indian Express.
Shrimp accounts for around 70 percent of India’s seafood export value. However, insurance firms in India have ceased providing insurance for local shrimp farmers following the damages caused by white spot disease in 1994, and the declaration about crop holiday by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) to prevent the spread of diseases on shrimp in 1995, CIBA’s Director KK Vijayan was quoted as saying.
“CIBA has been sensitizing insurance companies and facilitating them with scientific data that shrimp farming with adoption of better management practices is sustainable and needs institutional support,” Vijayan said.
Photo courtesy of Frederic Legrand - COMEO/Shutterstock
